at any point in 'time', the 'methods' invoked by those who lead thought are
the methods that've risen, like cream, to 'the top' of the mixture that is
societal thought.
it's, therefore, nothing much to go back in 'time' to trash the leading
thought of the former 'time'.
this having been said, i stand on my comments with respect to Kuhn's work. i
was referring, specifically, to his Courageous pointing to the 'failure to
convert' that so often occurs within the realm of Science, even in the face
of hard evidence such as that to which you refer.
Thomas S. Kuhn was a Great Thinker. His status as such is incontrovertible.
K. P. Collins
Bruce Lilly wrote in message <37974FA1.CF23F78B at erols.com>...
>Ken Collins wrote:
>>>> Bruce Lilly wrote in message <3795FE06.7DBC6BB7 at erols.com>...
>> >Ken Collins wrote:
>> >>
>> >> a good book, discussing the 'same-stuff' from a behavioral
perspective,
>> is
>> >> Thomas Kuhn's, _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions_.
>> >
>> >I'd call that "a load of postmodernist pap" rather than "a good book".
>>>> call it what you will, although Mr. kuhn's analysis did not give an
>> accounting in terms of nervous system function, his analysis is
verifiably
>> correct.
>>Kuhn starts his "pair o' dimes" nonsense with the bald assertion (p. 2)
that
>"Aristotelian dynamics [is] ... neither less scientific nor more the
product
>of human idiosyncrasy than those current today". The edifice that Kuhn
>attempts to construct on that shaky foundation simply won't stand up.
>Aristotle's dynamics was based solely on speculation, without the tempering
of
>experimentation *or* observation; those latter essential aspects of the
>scientific method were not part of Aristotle's methods, which therefore
cannot
>be reasonably asserted to be "scientific".
>>He [Kuhn] blathers on about a so-called "Copernican revolution", mentioning
>Aristarchus of Samos only by saying that the latter had a "complete
>anticipation [...] of Copernicus", without providing any explanation of how
>one might go about "anticipating" (much less performing a "complete
>anticipation") of something or someone 1800 years in the future.
>>If there's anything of substance in Kuhn's book that is "verifiably
correct",
>it has somehow escaped my attention amidst the postmodernist mumbo-jumbo,
and
>believe me I've *tried* to find something of substance there.
>>A much more rational (not to mention readable) account of the rise of
science,
>of Aristarchus of Samos and of Copernicus, etc. can be found in Bertrand
>Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy", ISBN 0-671-20158-1.
